Weather leads to numerous prep sports postponements

The threat of snow prompted the first widespread sports postponements of the winter season in the Washington area, affecting games Friday in every public school jurisdiction that had them scheduled. Almost all private school games were postponed as well.

The Prince George’s County basketball games scheduled for Friday night were bumped to Monday. Montgomery County games are set to be made up Feb. 4.

One of the top girls’ games pitted No. 11 Bullis and Georgetown Visitation, the six-time defending champ in the ISL AA league. That game will be made up Feb . 11 at 5:45 p.m.; the teams already are set to play Feb. 19.

Forest Park’s girls’ game at No. 14 Potomac (14-2, 7-0) has been bumped to Monday. Forest Park (13-5, 7-1) could tie the Panthers for first place in the Virginia AAA Cardinal District with a victory.

Many teams will now have to adjust to compressed schedules.

“At the high school level, you’re used to having a few days off to rest and practice between games, so it’s tough in that sense,” said Oakton boys’ Coach David Brooks, whose team will play three games in four days next week. “With that said, these are 16-, 17-year old teenagers, so they should have plenty of energy to adjust and play through a schedule like that.”

Three high-profile nonleague matchups involving local boys’ teams competing in the annual Basketball Academy at Morgan State were also affected. Coaches for No. 11 Potomac (Md.), No. 15 Riverdale Baptist and Largo said their teams would not be able to make the trip to Baltimore, and the event moved forward with a revised schedule. Those games are unlikely to be made up.

Potomac (Md.) was slated to play City (Balt.) in a matchup of expected Maryland 3A title contenders. Wolverines Coach Renard Johnson said the news struck his team particularly hard as the school planned to bus a group of students to the game for support, and he had heard from several Division I coaches who were planning to be in attendance.

“My players are just so highly disappointed,” Johnson said by phone Friday afternoon. “Truthfully, we play up for these types of occasions. I’ll tell you: Yesterday we had our best practice of the year, getting ready for this game. . . . It’s a lot of disappointment on every level that the game is not happening.”